Mapping Meaning: Showing Social Impact With Open Action

Put your social project on the map. Or, use those already listed to find something new in an area you care about. The OpenAction Map is a well-done full-screen map mashup that shows positive work based on the location that is being impacted.

The organization behind the map has a broad mission to "connect people to the projects they care about." And OpenAction is staying true to its name by making the data it collects available to anyone via an upcoming API:

We want to let you know that an open API is in our near future (Spring 2010), but it has not been built yet. Obviously we need to get data before we can expose it. So while our current focus is creating this open data, we are making a promise that we will have an open API soon.

Hopefully this means we'll have reason to write more of these Mapping Meaning posts in the future. For another example, see how how MercyCorps uses Google Maps.

About the author:Adam DuVander
-- Adam heads developer relations at Orchestrate, a database-as-a-service company. He's spent many years analyzing APIs and developer tools. Previously he worked at SendGrid, edited ProgrammableWeb and wrote for Wired and Webmonkey. Adam is also the author of mapping API cookbook Map Scripting 101.